Stay
by stereochick
Summary: My first attempt at slash. Johnny always knew Ponyboy was a bit obsessed with looks, but he never considered how Pony might look at him. When he starts noticing some strange glances, he makes some wrong assumptions. PonyJohnny slash.


_My first attempt at slash. My characterization might be a bit off, but I always wanted to examine Johnny's reaction to how focused Ponyboy was on looks._

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**Stay**

(Johnny's POV)

There was something about the way that Ponyboy was looking at me when I turned my head that got the thought set in my head. I'd been watching the movie, trying my damndest to follow the plot and understand what was going on so that me and him could talk about it later and here he was not even paying attention. Something about that got me kinda angry. I felt like I had been trying to impress him for nothing. This plot wasn't too complicated but I still felt kind of proud of myself for picking it up and understanding it.

I turned to him to see him staring at me like he'd never seen anything like me before. I couldn't stop the scowl that showed up on my face because of his lack of concentration but I also thought he was probably looking at one of the bruises I had on my cheeks. I hated catching anyone looking at me when they thought I didn't notice. It was weird because Ponyboy never usually did that. It was like he didn't care too much about what I looked like. Oh well, he's growing up I guess that was bound to change eventually. He'll probably be ashamed to be seen with me sooner or later. A handsome kid like him with a slob like me?

That got me real upset thinking about it and I turned towards him to see him blushing and looking kind of ashamed of himself. I guess it was because he realized I was angry. I heard him mutter something that sounded like an apology. I couldn't focus on the movie anymore though and I didn't really care too much. Pony turned to pretend like he was watching but really I could see his eyes were glazed over and he was pretending for my benefit.

This was a waste of time. Neither of us was watching this movie anymore so we might as well have taken off. "Are you bored?" I asked him and he turned towards me and seemed… kind of relieved and nodded. I asked him if he wanted to take off and he agreed. We could find Dally or go hang out in the lot or go to the bowling alley and play the arcade games. I might not have great movie-watching skills but boy could I play pinball.

We walked in silence back until halfway to the lot. I looked over because I could feel his eyes on me again and this time I was getting upset. I shot him a hurt look and he looked taken-aback. He was about to say something but suddenly tripped over his untied shoelace and landed heavily on his elbow. I cringed knowing how much that would hurt. That was the worst place to be struck. Something to do with the nerves being exposed I could recall, but I understood that pain. I dropped to my knees to help him up and I could see his face was turning red and he was moaning something awful. I felt bad because I knew how embarrassed he was that he was halfway to crying. But on the other hand I wanted him to know how it felt to have someone stare at you because they saw something distressing about you. A second later I hated myself for it and I wrapped an arm of comfort around his shoulders. I made him stop so he could tie his shoelace and he tried discretely wiping tears away on his knee.

I decided he would probably want to just settle down for the night so we went to the lot and lay on the grass. It was summer time and we didn't need to build a fire or anything. In fact we were feeling a bit balmy so we took off our jackets. It was dark enough that the stars were starting to come out and I lay on my back, putting my hands behind my head. "Hey Pony, look it's the little dipper." I told him, reaching out my arm to point it out. I looked over and caught him looking at me for the third time. Only this time instead of jumping to conclusions and getting angry, I really took a good look at him. He had this look in his eyes that I was surprised I had interpreted as suspicion or even inquisitiveness. There was definitely something else there.

It sounded dumb to me even then but I thought it might be… adoration. Maybe longing. It kind of scared me for a second before I realized I had almost surely misinterpreted it and was being stupid. No one would ever look at me like that. Not in a million years. Still it made me wonder. It made me hopeful, at least that maybe Pony wasn't looking at me for any bad reason like I'd expected.

I edged closer to him for some reason and stretched out a hand because I could see he was still in pain from that nasty fall he took. He had his uninjured arm behind his head and the other was lying across his chest. The skin hadn't broken any but it would be plenty bruised by tomorrow and it scrapped up pretty bad.

I rubbed his bare arm further up towards the shoulder so I wouldn't hurt him none. There was something about the way he tried to be tough but barely succeeded in pretending. That was what made him better than the rest of us. He hadn't been hardened by the streets. I'd do anything to keep that from happening to him. I couldn't imagine crying from being hurt physically ever again. That was the least of my problems anymore. Pony didn't like that he couldn't help crying when he was hurt or scared or upset. I think I did though.

He turned towards me and gave me a bleak smile. "Sorry about ruining everything tonight. We can go somewhere else if you wanna."

I shook my head and shrugged. "Nah, you want to just head back to your house? Maybe we can play some poker or watch some TV or something."

Pony looked thoughtful, then shot me a suspicious look. Maybe it was because he knew I knew he was terrible at poker or maybe it was because I usually tried to stay out longer, but he nodded and we set off towards his house.

I tried to make it less obvious I was kinda keeping an eye on him, trying to catch him looking at me like that again. It made me sort of wonder about what he saw when he did. I rarely get to a mirror unless I'm trying to do my hair, and then I'm avoiding looking at my face just because most of the time I've got some shady bruise or scar that I don't want to dwell on. I looked over at Ponyboy and realized just how we must look together by other people. Some ugly kid who'd been beat up a hundred times over with this handsome boy that might as well give up school and be a model.

Sure Soda was a handsome kid and all, the kind you catch yourself looking at without realizing you are, but Pony was still a kid, and he still had that innocent look about him, like you could tell he was a virgin or something. I dunno why I compared Soda to Pony taking sex into account but it seemed to fit. Or maybe it was because Soda must have known he was handsome. I mean, he had girls flirting and asking him out and crawling all over him all the time. Pony was still kind of oblivious to how good-looking he was. Maybe it was odd but I always found that kind of attractive about people; that they don't really know just how handsome they are even if someone points it out to them. Not that I found Pony attractive or anything, at least not for me.

But maybe he _was_ starting to realize it. Maybe that's why he kept checking me out, thinking about how he wished I were more attractive and how embarrassing it was that I barely had four pairs of jeans and the same with shirts and that same ratty jacket. Maybe he wished he could hang out with someone better-looking so girls wouldn't be turned off by me or something. I mean Steve wasn't as good-looking as Soda, but he sure wasn't as unsightly as me.

Those thought made me just about want to crawl under the floorboards even though I couldn't be sure. All I knew was that I didn't want to end up kicked to the curb for it. Pony was the best friend I ever had and I just about died thinking about what it would be like if he wasn't my buddy anymore.

I guess the thoughts got to me a little more than I'd let on normally because I spoke up. "I'm sorry I ain't good-looking or nothing but if you care that much you might as well just hang around with Soda all the time."

We'd been walking towards his house and he stopped right where he was and turned around to look at me with wide eyes. He looked shocked, then he looked kind of amused, but that changed real quick into hurt. "You think I care what people look like?"

I almost backed down but I knew he wanted me to. "Of course you care about what people look like, Pony. You wouldn't spend an hour in the mirror every day making sure you looked good if looks weren't important to you."

"I do not spend an hour in the mirror, Johnny Cade! You know that's a lie." He defended. I raised my eyebrows at him and reached around and pulled out the comb he kept in his back pocket and showed it to him.

He blushed, and I knew he didn't know how to respond to that so I handed him the comb and started walking and he had no choice but to follow.

"I don't care what other people look like, Johnny, I don't!" He said defensively. I shot him a sideward glance but I realized I didn't want to look at him just then. I didn't want to get into this fight with him, but I figured if he was gonna try and break up with me or anything I might as well not make it easy for him.

"You know you do, Pony, so don't bother trying to defend yourself. You think you'd have liked Cherry Valance as much as you do if she wasn't the prettiest girl at our school?"

"She's a girl, that's completely different. You're my buddy." He said, but he turned away and started blushing something fierce and I couldn't help but wonder why.

"I dunno what you're so insecure about anyway Johnny. You're just as attractive as anyone." He was blushing even harder which I thought was just plain strange. He sped up so he would be in front of me so I couldn't see his face.

"I'm the ugliest kid in our gang and don't you say another word about it because I'll know you're lying through your teeth at me."

"I ain't lying Johnny. For God sakes, just cause you can't see it doesn't mean the rest of us can't."

"Why you think you're blushing so bad then, Pony? Because you're lying. It's obvious, so knock it off and tell the truth."

"You want to know what I think, Johnny? The honest to God truth? The reason I'm blushing?" He stopped right in front of me and spun around so quick I couldn't stop and I banged right into him. He grabbed my face and pulled me into a kiss. I was so shocked I gasped out loud and he took that as an opportunity to shove his tongue in my mouth. I froze, not knowing what to do or say; if I should pull away or kiss back just to make him happy or sock him for it or even enjoy it like my body was telling me to because, hell, I'd probably never get kissed like this again.

In the end he caught himself before I had to make a decision. He pulled away and looked so ashamed and embarrassed he might have burst into tears if I hadn't been right in front of him.

"What the fuck?" I asked real shrilly. He turned right around and started sprinting. I'd never catch up with him if I tried to run after him but I knew he'd probably head home anyway so I could take my time.

Goddamn! What in the hell had brought that on? I thought back to how I'd thought he'd look at me in the lot… Was _that_ why he'd been looking at me the whole night? Gosh, it was hard to imagine. Maybe he really _didn't_ care about looks. Maybe he'd… well, I wasn't too sure just then what that had been. Maybe he'd just wanted to prove a point and hadn't known how to do it any other way. Maybe he'd gotten one of those hormonal impulses puberty brought on. I knew about those. Hell, I'd gotten an urge to kiss Dally once when he got too close to my face and I'd nearly burned myself blushing so hard. Dally'd just laughed at me and told me to quit being a fag, but I'd known he was kidding.

That was probably what it was. Maybe I'd tell him it was natural when I saw him at the house. I'd walked real slow, but the Curtis house was lurking in the distance and I was kind of dreading this. I mean, what if Pony really did have a crush on me? I wasn't sure how I'd even handle it. I mean, I certainly didn't… feel the same way. At least I didn't think I did. Sure I'd thought he was handsome and he was a great guy and all, but I couldn't imagine… even if that kiss had been kind of nice. No, because I liked girls. Right? Well, I liked looking at them and thinking about being with them. But then, I liked that about Pony too.

Course I'd never thought about a guy when I was…well, you know.

It scared me though. I'd never had to even think about thinking about something like this. It was like I'd always loved coke and then someone comes along and introduces cherry coke, and I still like coke, but is it wrong that I might like to try cherry coke?

The thought that my first kiss had been with a guy was another thought that crossed my mind. How was I gonna live this down? "Who was your first kiss, Johnny?" "Ponyboy Curtis."

Jeez, what had Pony done to me? Some probably meaningless little kiss and it turns into this giant mess. I thought about turning around and just going somewhere else to get this off of my mind, but it wouldn't work. I felt like I needed to talk to him, just to get my head straight.

The driveway was empty, but that only meant that one of the brothers was out. Darry could be working or Soda might be borrowing the car for a date. I walked in the door and the TV was blaring but Pony wasn't anywhere to be seen.

I turned the volume down and I could hear him crying in his bedroom. That made me feel just great, let me tell you. I almost walked out, but I didn't. I guess I felt guilty. I didn't know what for, of course, but it didn't change the fact that I did. I checked to make sure Darry wasn't home before I headed in. He was laying on his bed with his face down in his pillow and his back was kind of shaking.

"Pony?" I said to get his attention. He jumped up, mortified, like I'd just caught him with his hand down his pants or something.

"Get out! Get out I don't wanna to see you!" he hollered and he sounded like he meant it.

"Fine, I'll go sit on the couch and you can just come out when you want to talk about this." I said quietly and he looked like he wanted to protest but I walked out before he could. If you want to know the truth, I thought about just leaving and never speaking to him again. He had no right to kick me out when it was him that had kissed me. I mean, seriously, I had every right to just go kick his ass around the corner considering we were guys after all.

I waited around for near 20 minutes, just flipping through the four or so channels and getting real bored. He'd stopped crying after I went in but I could hear him pacing around in there breathing all funny getting his anger out and then getting the nerve up to come talk to me.

He walked out looking like a tornado hit. His hair was all messed up which didn't look too good considering he had hair grease in it and all. His clothes looked all rumpled and he had on these torn up faded pair of jeans that looked a little too big on him. Worst off he had blue ink on his lips like he'd been chewing on a pen and broken it.

"What the hell happened to you?" I asked him in shock. He shrugged and sat down, glaring at his faded old Converses. "Pony, what's wrong with your face?"

He looked up at me in anger. "Don't tell me I value appearances over what's inside, Johnny. Just cause I like to look ok don't mean I got a problem with anyone who don't or even care about that."

"So you messed up your hair and put ink on your face?" I asked him incredulously.

"Yeah, I wanted to prove it. I'll cut all my hair off if you don't believe me!" he said but I noticed the slight wince at the end.

I laughed at him, not being able to control it. "Sounds like you're going through a lot of trouble just to impress me, Pony." I told him, smiling as he blushed once again.

"That ain't it… I just don't like anybody making accusations at me. Dang it, Johnny! Stop laughing!" He was getting mad again and I made myself stop before he kicked me out again. I'd been planning on spending the night and if he told me to get out I'd be stuck in the lot again.

"Pony I don't care what you look like. You could be 200 pounds for all I care. I was just… just worried is all. You're my best friend and I didn't want to lose you for something stupid."

There was silence as we both remembered what had happened.

"Pony… do you… do you like me?" I asked quietly.

Pony looked scared. Hell, I was scared too. What he was about to answer could completely change our relationship. I wasn't sure how I'd react to what he was about to say either way. In a way, things had changed already.

He looked me in the eye and managed to keep from blushing. "I'm sorry, all right? I didn't wish for it, it just ended up happening somewhere along the way."

I bowed my head, feeling distressed. He continued. "I know you don't… don't feel the same way, so… can we just forget I said anything about it? I'll- I'll get over it eventually. I'm sorry for, for kissing you…"

I looked up at him and saw he had tears in his eyes and felt terrible once again. I stood up and walked over to where he sat on the couch and sat next to him, close enough to look right at him.

"Ponyboy… I want to be able to tell you I feel the same way, but I don't know. I mean, it just never really…" I quieted down because the look in his eyes made me want to start crying. He looked shattered into a million pieces and I understood how it was that our friendship could never really go back to normal. I wish I'd never called him on those looks he was shooting at me. I wish I could reverse time and stop myself so he could just go on without ever having said anything and me being oblivious forever.

I thought about never seeing him again and not being able to watch movies or sunsets or the stars with him. Never seeing that look in his eyes when he was amazed or impressed or moved by something. The way he always took everything to heart and was so incredibly unique from everyone else. Looking at his tousled hair and the way he was biting his ink stained lip, I suddenly realized I couldn't do it. I couldn't break his heart.

I leaned forward and caught him in a kiss. This time it was him that gasped out loud and I did the same thing he did to me, drawing him deeper into it and wrapping arm around his neck to pull him closer. The ink tasted bitter, and he was as inexperienced at it as I was but I wasn't as concerned with how it felt or how much I was enjoying as I was keeping him next to me so he would never be able to get away.

I wasn't sure what this meant for us, but I knew I'd be willing to try anything if it meant that Ponyboy Curtis would stay my best friend.


End file.
